Which Came First?

As soon as we wrapped up our springtime maple sugaring project, the focus of the curriculum in the Frog room shifted to oviparity, or animals that hatch out of eggs.

The book Chickens Aren't The Only Ones by Ruth Heller was an excellent introduction to the wide variety of animals that hatch out of eggs. We used the illustrations of fowl, fish, insects, reptiles, and amphibians to inform which toys made it onto our free-play shelves.

One morning, a particularly organized member of the Frog class laid out an impressive display of our plastic oviparous animals. There were ants, beetles, snakes and dinosaurs...


...lots...

...and lots of Dinosaurs!

We also had a few birds...

...with nests...

... and eggs.

We continued our March tradition of incubating chicken eggs. After last year's failed hatches, we were a little wary, but it's such a great project that we decided to cross our fingers and try again. We placed the eggs in the incubator on April 6th. Then we settled in to wait the 21 days that it takes for a tiny clump of cells to grow into a living, breathing chicken!

Did you know that 21 days is a loooooooong time for a three-year-old to wait?

We made a paper chain with 21 links. Each day, we tore one off to help us keep track of how many days were left.

We also set up a 'practice egg' in a pillow nest on top of our classroom loft;

This egg was BIG. Large enough for a child or two to sit on! The kids were very intrigued with the egg, especially with guessing what kind of animal could possibly hatch out it. They were very careful around the egg, covering it with blankets to keep it warm and speaking with quiet voices when they were close by.

After about a week and a half (conveniently right at the mid-point of the incubation cycle for our real chicken eggs...) the Frogs came looked in the pillow "nest" to find these;

"Chickies!!!!!"

They were delighted, but not quite as delighted as they were yesterday, when we peeked in the incubator to see this;

Aaaaaaaghhh!!!!!! It actually worked!!!!!!!

One tiny, gooey chick, plus four eggs with tiny cracks in them. Hooray!!!!

Want to hear something even more exciting? This morning when we checked the incubator, we counted eight chicks total, plus one more egg with a big crack in it. Then, we saw a miracle;

ONE OF THE CHICKS HATCHED RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!!!

Truly. Amazing.

(P.S. I caught our hatching chick on video! It needs a little editing, but I'll post it as soon as it's done, along with more photos of our nine baby chicks!!!)